Une Mort Rapide
by PasUneVampire
Summary: One-shot for NBC's Hannibal: Will goes to Hannibal after a troubling case, telling him of the nightmares about the recent cases. Hannibal elects to tell Will a story (Hannibal Rising), in the hopes of showing Will why the killer may be who he is, and that he's not the actual monster in this story. WARNING: Corpses/tons of blood/murder/cannibalism (of course). No Hannigram, sorry.


Set sometime before 1x13 / 3rd person POV / One-shot for NBC's Hannibal / partly really long because of the telling of what happens in _Hannibal Rising_

**Full Summary: **Will goes to Hannibal after a troubling murder scene. He tells Hannibal of the horrible nightmares that wake him during the night, bathed in sweat. Hannibal tells Will that, perhaps, the dreams are occurring so much lately is because of stress. Will tells Hannibal how unhappy he is with the slow progress in finding the Chesapeake Ripper, how he is slowly losing his ability to connect with the Ripper as the murders become more and more gruesome, yet still remain somehow poetic. Hannibal elects to tell a story to try to show Will why some men are the way they are.

**Warnings: **Well, if you watch NBC's Hannibal then you'll be able to read this FanFic since it's only rated T. Corpses, tons of blood, murder, and, of course, cannibalism.

**Spoilers: **I will kind of ruin all of _Hannibal Rising_ for any of you who have not seen the movie (or possibly read the book... I wouldn't know though because I haven't read the books). If you are one of those people, then you should go watch the movie because it's pretty good.

**Disclaimer: I own squat.**

**Une mort rapide**

_**Sunday**_

Will Graham isn't there anymore. Jack can see Will's body from his standing point as he closes the bedroom door in a house far away from human civilization, giving Will's unmoving body some privacy. His body is pale, unmoving upon the large spot of dried blood staining the floor. White tape outlines his body, careful to show the position of each of his four limbs, of his head with those closed, still eyes. The house is quite dark; the sky is cloudy with the recent rain. A dog peered up at the bedroom window from where it had been taken outside and tide to a police cruiser after the body had been found. The old house leaked the warmth it once held into the cold winter night air.

Hannibal's face remained impassive as he stood in the corner of the bedroom. It hadn't even been difficult to get Jack to allow him to stay in the room with Will. He looked at the body once more, the barest hint of a frown appearing on his lips. He strode over to Will, and crouched near his left shoulder, the side on which his head was facing. Hannibal leaned forwards until he was hovering a mere few inches above Will's face. _"There."_ Hannibal watched as Will's eyes twitched beneath their lids. Yes, Will Graham's eyes were moving faster and faster now. His body began to shake as gasps wracked his frame. His arm flailed, coming oh so close to slapping Hannibal across the face. Will's eyes snapped opened, his arms and legs scrambling to push himself into a corner of the room, his eyes boring holes into the unblinking Hannibal.

_**Monday**_

"Come on in, Will," Hannibal said, gesturing for the indicated man to enter from the waiting area outside his study. Will nodded shakily, staring at the ground as he walked. His body plopped heavily onto the nearest of the two cushioned chairs; Hannibal's usual spot, with the desk to his left and the large windows on the far wall to his right. Will leaned forward, elbows resting on knees, worn hands rubbing tired eyes.

"You seem quite a bit more troubled now days, Will," Hannibal paused for a moment, remembering the day before. "Especially yesterday."

"Yeah, I... I just don't know what to do anymore. It's getting harder and harder to put myself in _his _position. Recently... Recently, I've been dreaming about the murders, only... Only, in these dreams, I'm only ever the _victim_."

"You say that word with such hatred, Will... If you become the victim in these dreams, then does it not make it easier for you to see the killer's face, rather than to entirely _become_ him?"

"No, I always wake up before then. Sometimes... sometimes I don't even know where I am when I wake up. I'll just be _that _confused, but sometimes, I _go _places. I walk around while I sleep, but I've never been a sleepwalker until now. I thought at first my subconscious was leading me towards _him_, but I really doubt it now. I've woken up on the road towards this part of town and in the woods walking directly here. But there's nothing _here _basically except for your house and the station. I don't really know what else is around this area."

"You do not know this area, do not live close to others, because of seclusion... because its safer to, correct? Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you that you must explore the unknown in order to obtain your answers.

"Explore the unknown?" Will asked, his voice rising exasperatedly. "I never know what's going on anymore! I have _no_ idea why this guy is killing how, where, who he does. It makes _no _sense! There's no pattern; no preference to race, ethnicity, sex, age, jobs, or anything else. This killer is just that; a _murderer_ for the fun of it!"

"Perhaps this killer has a _reason _behind his drive for human flesh, though."

"Yeah, we've already figured _that one _out," Will snorted. "He kills all of these random people for stupid reasons like _better music,_ or as he seems to prefer more, for _food_. He's a cannibal!" Will's breaths were coming quick and shallow now. "He's a _killer_... and I can't do the one thing I'm good at to even figure out_ why_. Why he is the monster he is," Will trailed off.

"Have you ever thought that maybe, to him, everyone else is the monsters? That maybe he's just scared and trying to find his way in this horrible world we live in."

"It's only horrible because of people like _him_," Will spat.

"Perhaps not him alone, Will," Hannibal paused, a look of indecision crossing his usually impassive face. Something one out over the other as Hannibal shifted to face Will more directly. "Let me tell you a story... Long ago, at a family's castle in Lithuania, a family and its servants rushed to pack the family and some of their belongings into a horse drawn cart. Two men helped to push the back of the cart as it moved along the trail. A father explains to his two children that they are going to stay at the family cottage deeper in the woods for a while because of the Russian tanks moving westward towards their home. Neither the eight year old boy, nor the four year old little girl, Mischa, could have known how drastically their life was about to change..."

_* Story time! *_

A large tank rolled to a stop in the clearing with the family cottage. A voice, heavy with a Russian accent, calls out "Everybody out of the house." As the family shuffles out, the man turns to the head of the family, saying "We only want water. The children can stay inside." Their mother urges the children back inside, and they watch through the open doorway as a pump in set into their well next to the tank. Mischa waves a small hand at the man who had spoken, still standing in the tank, who gave her a glimpse of a smile as he returned the movement. As the Russian's pump slowly pulls up the water, the little girl becomes impatient with standing so far from everyone except for her brother. She calls out "Mama... Mama!" Their mother only turns, placing a finger over her own mouth in an attempt to quiet her daughter.

The uneasiness of the clearing in the woods is shattered by the sudden roaring overhead of Nazi planes firing down on their enemy's tank and the surrounding area. The tank fires back as the plane's fire takes down a couple of Russian soldiers, along with the children's father. One of the tank's shots hits an overhead attacker straight on, bringing the plane down upon itself. The two heavy machines explode in a ball of fire. The children's mother calls each of their names, the boy yelling "Mama!" as he spots her. He runs up to her in time to catch her as she falls before dying in her son's arms. The little girl calls for her mother once more, oblivious to the fact that her mother has just died. The little boy waves frantically at Mischa, telling her to get away, to get into the safety of the cottage. Some of the automatic ammo for the gun atop the Russian tank is caught in the edge of the fire consuming both plane and tank. The rounds become overheated, shooting off in random places in between the two children. As the little girl moves to go to her mother, the boy rushes at her, pulling her into the lodge.

.

The little girl opens her mouth as her brother places another spoonful of soup in her direction as they sat in front of the fire. The quiet of the room is broken as the pair hears wolves howling outside. The boy opens the door, light from the fire illuminating part of the front yard where hungry wolves sniff at the bodies of fallen family members and soldiers. The boy yells at them, quickly throwing bits of rubble in the direction of the wolves, satisfied as they scamper off. The boy walks back in the cottage, closing the door firmly behind him.

A group of six Nazi collaborators in their stolen wartime ambulance car spot a bit of light peaking through the dense forest. Following it, they come upon a cottage in the center of a large clearing, wreckage strewn around the yard, but an inviting warm light spilling from an uncovered second floor window. The men burst into the cottage to see a little girl, her older brother grabbing a fire poker and lunges at them. The little girl begins to cry where her brother left her in the corner of the room, the men surrounding and taunting the young boy. The last of the men steps into the building, pointing his gun at the cowering Mischa, saying "Put it down... or we shoot her." The boy lowers his weapon, allowing one of the men to pull it from his grasp.

The children are moved upstairs, one of the men tying a heavy chain around their bodies to keep them at the stair banister. One of the men laughs, "We lucky; only kids. If a patrol comes by, we saved them... and their family's stuff," his yellowed teeth are shown as he grins. One of the men, Petras Kolnas, slips Mischa's metal bracelet off of her small wrist before handing the children a rough piece of an old, large, burlap sack to use as a blanket.

.

It is a while later, and each and every person in the cottage was slowly starving. One of the men flips through a photo album, informing the rest of his group the names of the children before ripping and burning the book. A man named Vladis Grutas stares up at the children, digging his face into the carcass of a recent kill, devouring the rest of the animal's innards as the two children stare on in horror. He pulls the animal away, it's blood staining his mouth and chin. "We eat or die," he stated coldly to his men. Each of the six men slowly turn, one by one, to look up at the children as, once again, the girl's small body is wracked with another coughing fit.

..

The boy is now sixteen years old. His old home had been turned into an orphanage for boys who lost their parents in the war. He does not speak during the day, refuses to. One of the wardens, not even two years older than himself, demands the boy speaks. He gets a fork stuck into his hand instead. The first chance he gets, the boy sneaks into his mother's old room, grabs a few hidden letters and photographs, and makes his escape into the night. He comes to live with his Aunt in law, the recently widowed Lady Murasaki. One day in the marketplace, long after the boy came to live with her, a rude butcher insults the kind woman. The boy decides he does not like rude people.

.

Paul Momund sits in his little boat on the lake, gutting a recently caught fish before placing it in his leather bag. He looks towards the water's edge, an uneasy feeling poking at the corners of his fat pig mind, and he picks up the oars and rows himself back to shore. As he walks towards his belongings, he comes across the boy from the market place who jumped him after insulting the Japanese woman. As he moves to teach the little brat a lesson, he is shocked when in one quick, fluid movement, the boy pulls out a katana and slices his large stomach crossways. A cut on his upper right arm is next, soon followed by a one foot long slice running diagonally on his back from his left hip towards his right shoulder.

As he is cut again on the left of his large abdomen, the man screams and spits out blood that has accumulated in his mouth. The boy sneers, saying "Oh, do you see how your mouth stains the air? I should add that to my drawing. Would you like to see it?" he asks, pulling up a well drawn picture of the butcher's severed head upon a plate. Momund's incessant screams are severed, along with his head, in one graceful and powerful movement of the boy's katana.

.

When Lady Murasaki sees the severed head on the table of offerings to her ancestors, she turns to see the boy close behind her. "Rudeness is an epidemic, my Lady."

.

The boy listens as, in the next room over, Inspector Popil discusses the results of his polygraph with an unknown person. "He reacts to nothing... It's monstrous."

..

The boy is accepted into l'Institut de Medecine St. Marie, en Paris.

..

The boy stares at the building where it all happened. After a nearby bombing, much of the roof and upper part of the house had collapsed. Part of it, he knew, had struck and killed one of the men, Krazys Provik, as it fell. As he reaches for the dog tags of the men who tore his family apart, the boy made sure not to let the other human nearby that he knew of his presence. Enrikas Doltrich fights for the upper hand with the boy, but is quickly rendered unconscious.

.

In the morning, the boy buries the bones he found of his sister's inside of the old bathing tub, along with his mother's jewelry and some wild flowers.

Doltrich wakes to find himself gagged and bound to a large tree. "Where are the others?" a voice asks calmly from in front of him. Doltrich stutters out an "I don't know." The boy begins whistling the tune of what used to be his little sister's favorite song as he sloly tied one ond of the rope binding Doltrich to the saddle of Doltrich's own strong horse. "Yes, I know where one of them is. Grentz. I know Grentz," he says quickly. "Grentz?" asks the boy. "In Canada, he got out on the refugee boat from Bremerhaven."

Deciding he was through with the man, the boy says "Let's sing for Mischa now. The boy begins singing along to the tune he whistled earlier as slow, graceful movements brought him back over next to the large horse. Taking the reigns, he walks a few steps with the horse before stopping to turn to Doltrich. "You're not singing," he grins. "Sing for slack." Doltrich begins singing as the boy continues to walk the horse away from the tree, the roap around Doltrich's neck and body tightening with every inch the horse's saddle moved away. Blood is splattered across the boy's face as Doltrich's head pops off because of the pressure of the rope. A gloved hand reaches up to wipe some of the blood off of his face, a pink tongue reaching out to taste the blood of the boy's most recent victim. Later that day, the boy cooks Doltrich's cheeks over a fire along with some wild mushrooms growing nearby.

..

The boy finds out that Kolnas now has a restaurant that he runs under a fake name. The boy and his aunt stop in and order a bit of food in view of the front door. Kolnas walks in with his wife, son, and daughter on their way to Sunday church. As Kolnas speaks to the manager and collects some of the day's profit, the little girl walks off to where some birds are caged in the middle of the restaurant.

The boy whistles in her direction, and when she turns to face him, he offers her a wink with the cherry from on top of his dessert. She trots up to him happily, reaching forward to take the cherry. The movement pulls the sleeve of her coat up slightly and the boy's eyes are drawn to the bracelet around the girl's wrist. Mischa's bracelet. He softly sings to a few lines of Mischa's favorite song. "Do you know this song?" The girl shakes her head no. As the boy continues to sing, he slips her father's dog tag into her coat pocket.

When Kolnas notices his wandering daughter, the boy turns his face away to avoid recognition. Kolnas calls his daughter over to him, and she walks away from the table. Lady Murasaki leans over the table towards the boy, ready to ask for him to spare Kolnas because of his children. "She was wearing Mischa's bracelet," was her only reply. The boy watched as Kolnas knelt in between his children, showing them a few coins he had on his hand. "Choose your offering for the church and put it in your pocket." Kolnas's son picks up a coin and slides it into his pocket as told. The little girl points to one of the coins, Kolnas praising her for picking such a shiny coin. As his hand slips into her pocket to carry the coin safely to the church, his hand brushes against cool metal. He pulls out the dog tag, color draining from his face because he knew how many people knew where these had been, and only one of them hadn't parted on good terms with equally split stolen goods. He stood and looked around the restaurant, but the boy and his aunt were already gone.

..

Grutas sends Zigmas Milko to l'Institut de Medecine St. Marie to kill the boy. The boy works there, preparing corpses for upcoming medical classes. He enjoys learning about the human body as he works. Milko ends up drowning in Formalin solution in the cadaver tank just before Inspector Popil comes to question the boy.

..

Kolnas is killed soon after. The boy manipulates him into believing he has kidnapped his children in order to learn the whereabouts of the kidnapped lady Murasaki. The boy leaves the body in the floor of the kitchen of Kolnas's restaurant; a tanto dagger piercing the soft underside of his chin as it was shoved back towards the brain.

..

The boy threw a man overboard the side of the yacht, who was then crushed between the port and the side of the boat. As he entered a room on a lower floor of the boat, Lady Murasaki tied to a chair in the middle of the room, a single shot rang out, the boy dropping to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Grutas goes to Lady Murasaki, planning to have his way with her, but fell to the ground as a blade sliced clean through his Achilles tendons. The boy tells Grutas that he is killing the people who _ate _his little sister. Grutas laughs harshly before informing the boy that they had fed her to him through a broth, and that his lips had been greedy upon the spoon. The boy yells into the heavens before roughly carving an 'M' into Grutas's chest. "'M' for Mischa." The boy stabs Grutas in the side, letting the man slowly bleed to death in horrible agony.

.

Lady Murasaki speaks quietly to Inspector Popil about her involvement in past events. An explosion rocked the water as Grutas's yacht becomes nothing but floating pieces of burning rubble on the water and nearby dock. Lady Murasaki yells for the boy she last saw on the boat, running forward only to be stopped by the strong arms of the Inspector.

..

The last man, Bronys Grentz, is found a while later in a hunting shop. Animal heads and pelts cover the walls, but Grentz's blood stains the floor behind the counter where his cheek-less head lays unattached to his body.

*_ Story time's over now *_

Hannibal's final words hung in the air like the dust settling after a storm. Both men sat quietly, thinking of the final 'known' murder of the boy. "Did that really happen?" Will asked, his hesitant voice breaking the stillness. "Yes."

Will's mind suddenly threw him through all of the previous and unsolved murder cases. As each one passed quickly in front of his eyes, the shape of the killer slowly became more clearly defined. Then, the most recent murder came and passed with Will as the victim. After so long of being unable to connect with the Chesapeake Ripper, Will was disoriented when he found 'himself' entering a darkened room, looking more and more like the room his actual self was currently sitting in. The adrenalin still rushing through 'his' body even after the thrill of the kill as 'his' feet carried him over to a stack of drawings on the table, expertly pulling out the one on the bottom. 'His' hands stroked the only paper of that colored paper in the whole pile, the only paper with a drawing of a young girl on it. Will felt 'himself' murmuring "Mischa... My little sister... I miss you so _much_."

Will didn't notice how heartbroken the last word sounded, too focused on the fact that everything was so _clear_ now. His eyes opened, showing him the concerned look on Hannibal's face. Will's eyes flickered to the table he knew Hannibal to keep some old sketches, catching the old copper colored paper he had just seen from the mind of the Chesapeake Ripper. His eyes snapped back to meet Hannibal's, a cold understanding settling in them.

_**Tuesday**_

Jack stared at the newspaper in front of him, the leading article being on the recent death of the FBI's local consultant. Jack didn't need to read the article to know the details; he had lived some of them. He had been there on Sunday at what they hadn't known to have been Will's last consulting job where the man had come running out of the bedroom a young woman had been murdered in. He had seen how the murders were just _messing _with his head now. Jack had been one of the first to be at Will's house after a distressing call reporting Will's body.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter had gone to visit Will after the freak out moment he had at the murder scene the day before. Hannibal had said that he had been surprised to find all of Will's dogs outside in the early morning cold, rather than inside the warm house, as he had pulled into the driveway. After no one answered the door, Hannibal said he took the spare key from where he knew Will to hide it and let himself in. When he opened the door to Will's bedroom, he had found the body of Will; a thin chord around his throat that had probably ended his life within minutes. Jack still couldn't believe that Will was dead, that he had killed himself so suddenly.

**Yes, I made Will die on a Monday. It seemed appropriate because no one likes Mondays. I thought that Hannibal would have wanted to kill his friend quickly and pretty painlessly if he ever had to, so here it was.**

**Any thoughts? Reactions? I'd love to know what you thought about it! -A**


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